News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Jackson County citizens will not see a property tax increase in the new fiscal year.
County Mayor Randy Heady said the new budget manages to fund for the county’s needs without a tax increase.
“Well there is nothing special in this year’s budget, honestly it is real close to last year’s,” Heady said. “The only thing that is in this budget that was of significance was we did do 3-percent increases in salaries and wages across the board.”
Heady said the commission wanted to give county workers raises before this budget.
“These are good things, anytime you can give your people cost-of-living raise because we know that a 3-percent raise is not a raise it’s a cost-of-living raise,” Heady said. “And we were not able to do that last year, so this year we are excited that we are just able to do that for our workers. I am extremely excited about my budget. Maybe not everybody is.”
Heady said the budget allowed for the creation of new positions, including two new School Resource Officers (SROs).
“We created a solid waste directors position in the solid waste budget which was very important for me,” Heady said. “That is something that I wanted to get done and I got done, so I am excited about that for me.”
The Jackson County Commission passed the 2019-2020 budget Monday.
